Mark Steven Greenfield: Unequivocal Symbolisms

 So how does race impact your work?

I would like to think that race has no impact on my work, but both sadly and happily, it does. The sadness comes from my naive perceptions of the art world being color blind. Initially I was undisturbed by academia's preoccupation with the predominantly European aesthetic. I kept thinking to myself there has got to be more to it than this. My first painting instructor at a local university put me in a classroom by myself effectively segregating me. He cited the lame excuse that there just wasn't enough room in his classroom for me. As a result, I was rarely invited to participate in critiques, and when I was, the rest of the class was unusually timid in offering feedback on what I was doing for fear of either offending me or being labeled racist.

Upon graduating I started approaching galleries and was continually rebuffed by curators who would acknowledge to work as being good, but "Too Ethnic", which was code for Black and unmarketable. My perception of the art world was shaken, because while in school I never really questioned the ethnicity of the artists I was studying, nor that of my fellow students. I believed that artists are inspired by life experiences and it didn't register with me that I could be penalized for having experiences that were different from those of my counterparts. I began looking at the work of other African American artists who had achieved some measure of success as determined by the gatekeepers and noticed several common characteristics. Their work was often non-objective, abstraction, folk art, or deemed non-threatening.

I realized that the work I was doing was none of those things, but had the potential of stimulating dialog on topics that the art establishment was comfortable avoiding, but was, nonetheless, important. It caused me to rethink the monolithic concept of the "Art World", in favor of the idea that there were multiple "Art Worlds". I concluded that it would be foolish to wait for some form of validation or anointing by such an arbitrary body or alter my aesthetic priorities in any way, to fit into someone else's idea of what my experience should be.

I resolved that creating the work was the singularly most important thing I could do. I embrace and celebrate the race and enjoy acceptance wherever and from whomever, it is offered. My work unapologetically concerns itself with the African American experience and sometimes critiques a society that grapples with the consequences of its original sin. The work incorporates irony, humor, tragedy, pathos, history, and a myriad of other tools, to challenge long-held notions of race in a different way.

In your work, oftentimes, different worlds collide and inform one another to produce meaning that is often paradoxical. In a practical sense, what are your criteria for determining when an artwork is resolved?

My creative methodology involved efforts to achieve a balance between what was practical for me, and what allowed me to create without market concerns. Consequently I have always worked a job to support my ability to make my art. It's a difficult trade off, made even more difficult as the level of responsibility in some of the jobs increased, but it allowed me a freedom that I might not otherwise have been able to achieve.

I tell people, with some pride, that the best job I ever had was as a janitor. It was mindless work that afforded me the time to contemplate my approach to the artwork. I mostly retired from the working world some ten years ago, but still find it useful to determine potential problems and resolve them, through careful consideration, and in the sketch phase. Aside from a few minor adjustments, all that remains is the execution.

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Website: www.markstevengreenfield.com

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